Absorbent articles such as sanitary napkins, pantiliners, and incontinence pads are devices that are typically worn in the crotch region of an undergarment. These devices are designed to absorb and retain liquid and other discharges from the human body and to prevent body and clothing soiling. Sanitary napkins are a type of absorbent article worn by women in a pair of panties that is normally positioned between the wearer's legs, adjacent to the perineum. Sanitary napkins of a wide variety of shapes and dimensions are currently used by women for the collection of menses and other bodily discharges.
In the past, a number of efforts have been directed at providing sanitary napkins that maintain contact with the wearer's body. One attempt to provide such body contact is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 2,747,575 issued May 29, 1956 to Mercer. The Mercer patent discloses a catamenial bandage having a longitudinal hump which bulges towards and may contact the body of the wearer, The catamenial bandage described in the Mercer patent suffers from several disadvantages, however. For instance, the size and shape of the absorbent pad and hump in the Mercer bandage appear to limit the conditions under which the bandage is able to maintain contact with (and conform to) the body of the wearer. The portions of the bandage that lie laterally to the sides of the hump are not thin and flexible. In addition, the hump of the Mercer bandage is made of a cellulosic material, and, as a result, may tend to collapse and become permanently distorted during use.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,425,130 issued to DesMarais on Jan. 10, 1984, discloses a compound sanitary napkin that comprises a primary menstrual pad and a panty protector joined to one another at their corresponding ends in such a manner that the two constituents are free to move relative to one another along essentially their entire common length. The primary menstrual pad is intended to absorb the bulk of the bodily fluids discharged by the user, while the panty protector is intended to protect the user's garments from soiling. In use, the relative freedom of movement between the primary menstrual pad and the panty protector serves to maintain the primary menstrual pad adjacent the user's crotch region while the panty protector remains associated with the user's undergarment.
The current tendency has been to develop sanitary napkins that are increasingly thinner, and thus more comfortable and less obtrusive than prior sanitary napkins. Recently, efforts have been directed at developing thin sanitary napkins which have the capacity to absorb and contain medium to high menstrual discharges. Previously, such discharges could only be handled by relatively thick sanitary napkins. Examples of thin sanitary napkins having capacities great enough to handle medium to high menstrual flows are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,950,264 and 5,009,653, issued to Osborn, III, on Aug. 21, 1990 and Apr. 23, 1991, respectively.
It is also desirable that sanitary napkins, not only maintain contact with, but conform as closely as possible to the wearer's body. Such a body-conforming capability increases the effectiveness of the sanitary napkin by reducing the possibility that menses will travel around the perimeter of the sanitary napkin and leak. There have been a number of recent efforts to provide sanitary napkins and other absorbent articles with improved body-conforming characteristics. In addition to serving as examples of thin sanitary napkins, the sanitary napkins disclosed in the above-mentioned Osborn patents also serve as examples of anatomically-conforming sanitary napkins. While the sanitary napkins disclosed in the Osborn patents work quite well, the search for improved sanitary napkins has continued.
For example, PCT International Patent Application Publication No. WO 94/16658, entitled "Generally Thin, Flexible Sanitary Napkin With Central Absorbent Hump", published on Aug. 4, 1994, discloses a generally thin, flexible sanitary napkin which has a central absorbent hump, and is capable of handling medium to high menstrual flows. The hump is particularly useful in fitting into the space between the wearer's labia to more readily intercept menses and other bodily discharges when they leave the wearer's body. The search, however, has continued for improved sanitary napkins, particularly sanitary napkins that will achieve even better fit within the space between the wearer's labia majora, and which are more adept at absorbing blood-based liquids, such as menses.
The development of highly absorbent articles for blood and blood-based liquids such as catamenial pads (e.g., sanitary napkins), tampons, wound dressings, bandages and surgical drapes can be challenging. Compared to water and urine, blood and blood based liquids such as menses are relatively complex mixtures of dissolved and undissolved components (e.g., erythrocytes or red blood cells). In particular, blood-based liquids such as menses are much more viscous than water and urine. This higher viscosity hampers the ability of conventional absorbent materials to efficiently and rapidly transport these blood-based liquids to regions remote from the point of initial discharge. Undissolved elements in these blood-based liquids can also potentially clog the capillaries of these absorbent materials. This makes the design of appropriate absorbent systems for blood-based liquids such as menses particularly difficult.
Foams of various types have been suggested for use in tampons, sanitary napkins and other articles that absorb blood and blood-based liquids. See for example U.S. Pat. No. 4,110,276 (DesMarais), issued Aug. 29, 1978 (soft, flexible, open celled foams made from polyurethanes, cellulose, or styrene/butadiene rubber that can be used in tampons and sanitary pads); U.S. Pat. No. 4,752,349 (Gebel), issued Jun. 21, 1988 (foams of "medium cell size" hydrophilized by surfactant treatment and having a density within the range of 0.1 to 0.8 g/cc); U.S. Pat. No. 4,613,543 (Dabi), issued Sep. 28, 1986 (hydrophilic cellular polymers used in catamenial products); U.S. Pat. No. 3,903,232 (Wood et al.), issued Sep. 2, 1975 (compressed hydrophilic polyurethane foams useful in biomedical applications, including catamenial devices); U.S. Pat. No. 4,049,592 (Marans et al.) issued Sep. 20, 1977 (biodegradable hydrophilic polyurethane foams highly absorptive upon contact with liquids or bodily liquids having utility in sanitary napkins and the like). Prior foams used in these products have tended to have relatively large cell sizes. As a result, these prior foams do not exert sufficient fluid capillary pressure for blood and blood-based liquids to acquire discharged menstrual liquids quickly from and through the topsheet of catamenial products such as sanitary napkin . This results in undesirable rewet since the surface in immediate contact with the body retains some of the fluid that is not absorbed into the core and is available to be transferred back onto the body of the wearer.
Suitable absorbent foams for absorbent products have also been made from High Internal Phase Emulsions (hereafter referred to as "HIPE"). See, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,260,345 (DesMarais et al), issued Nov. 9, 1993 and U.S. Pat. No. 5,268,224 (DesMarais et al), issued Dec. 7, 1993. These absorbent HIPE foams provide desirable urine handling properties, including: (a) relatively good wicking and fluid distribution characteristics to transport fluid away from the initial impingement zone and into the unused balance of the foam structure to allow for subsequent gushes of fluid to be accommodated; and (b) a relatively high storage capacity with a relatively high fluid capacity under load, i.e. under compressive forces. These HIPE absorbent foams are also sufficiently flexible and soft so as to provide a high degree of comfort to the wearer of the absorbent article; some of these foams, such as those described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,387,207 issued Feb. 7, 1995 (Dyer, et al.), can be made relatively thin until subsequently wetted by the absorbed body liquids. See also U.S. Pat. No. 5,147,345 (Young et al), issued Sep. 15, 1992 and U.S. Pat. No. 5,318,554 (Young et al), issued Jun. 7, 1994, which disclose absorbent cores having a fluid acquisition/distribution component that can be a hydrophilic, flexible, open-celled foam such as a melamine-formaldehyde foam (e.g., BASOTECT.TM. made by BASF), and a fluid storage/redistribution component that is a HIPE-based absorbent foam.
HIPE foams can provide the fluid capillary pressure necessary to remove most of the menstrual fluid from the body, or topsheet adjacent to the body, thus minimizing rewet. However, it has been found that the residual hydratable salts such as calcium chloride typically present in prior HIPE foams can impair the rapid acquisition blood and blood-based liquids by these foams, and especially the wicking of such liquids within these foams. As noted above, blood and blood-based liquids such as menses are more highly viscous than water and especially urine. The higher viscosity of these liquids is further increased by the presence of these salts. Moreover, prior HIPE foams often had a foam microstructure too small to admit readily the undissolved components of blood and blood-based liquids such as red blood cells.
Therefore, it is an object of the present invention to provide an absorbent article, such as a sanitary napkin that maintains contact with and conforms as closely as possible to the wearer's body.
It is another object of the present invention to provide an absorbent article, such as a sanitary napkin that is comprised of a foam material which is especially suitable for handling, absorbing, and storing blood-based liquids, such as menses.
It is another object of the present invention to provide an absorbent structure for an absorbent article, where the entire absorbent structure is absorbent and resilient so that the absorbent article does not require a separate resilient component that would interfere with the overall absorbency of the absorbent structure.
It is another object of this invention to provide a sanitary napkin which readily intercepts menses when discharged by being highly compressible so that it can be compressed to a relatively small size to comfortably fit and maintain contact with and conform to the shape of the female wearer's body, particularly with the inwardly-facing surfaces of the labia majora, or it can occupy the relatively large area in the crevice between the wearer's buttocks (or gluteal groove).
It is an additional object of the present invention to provide an absorbent article, such as a sanitary napkin, that has an absorbent structure which can routinely and comfortably fit interlabially on wearer's having a wide variety of body dimensions.
These and other objects of the present invention will be more readily apparent when considered in reference to the following description and when taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.